Saratoga Rotary honors four students with scholarships

The Saratoga Rotary Club announced its annual scholarship winners in April, naming four Saratoga high school students as the lucky recipients of awards totaling $10,000.

The winners are Saratoga High School students Graham Grant and Elise Mun and Prospect High School students Zoe Nilsen and Nicholas Kikuchi. All four are seniors.

"We wish all these youngsters all the best," Saratoga Rotary Club member Shinku Sharma said. "[The] future is bright when we have capable and compassionate young people like these."

The students will each receive $2,500 toward their college education.

Graham was a standout competitor for the Saratoga High wrestling team, placing fourth in state, and has been a member of his school's marching band all four years. He is headed to the University of Chicago, where he will be pursuing a degree in physics.

Elise is a member of the Saratoga girls golf team and advanced chamber ensembles and symphony orchestra. She was inspired to start her own catering company after attending the Rotary-sponsored Enterprise Leadership Conference last year. This fall, she will be attending Cornell University to pursue a degree in hotel administration.

Advertisement

Growing up in Silicon Valley, the 17-year-old Saratoga resident said she had always thought her path to the future would lead her to the STEM field, and so she followed an engineering track and received admissions to many schools in civil engineering. But she realized her passion was in the food industry and hospitality.

"I love traveling and exploring the newest places to eat," Elise said. "It's hard when the people around us are pushing and pressuring us to follow the trends of engineering or pre-med, but I'm a strong believer in doing what you like to do. I realized a while after being admitted that building bridges was not my joy in life; rather, working directly with people and businesses was not only fun for me, but a strength that I possessed."

Zoe is co-president of Prospect High School's Associated Student Body and a member of the school's volleyball and swimming teams. She also worked on the technical crew for the theater company.

She said she plans to use her scholarship money to buy a new laptop for college. She will be attending the UC-Santa Cruz to study human biology, after which she intends to go to medical school to become a pediatric cardiologist. The decision was inspired by a major heart surgery Zoe underwent at the age of 4 because she was born with a ventricular septal defect.

"Of course at 4 years old, I did not realize how serious my surgery was," she said. "However, when I was old enough to recognize the impact it had on my life, I took it on as an obligation to give back to the world that had blessed me with a second chance."

Added the 18-year-old San Jose resident, "I want nothing more than to be able to give that exact same chance to kids who have similar conditions to mine."

Nicholas is co-president of Prospect's ASB, a member of the basketball team and a volunteer camp counselor in Nakayoshi Gakko, a two-week summer program in Mountain View where elementary and middle school students learn about Japanese culture and tradition.

He is headed to Santa Clara University to earn a master's or doctorate in biology. Inspired by his grandfather, who used prosthetics for both of his legs, Nicholas wants to become a bio-engineer who works with prosthetic limbs.

The presentation of the scholarships took place on April 11 at a Saratoga Rotary Club meeting.

The Saratoga Rotary Charitable Foundation and the Thompson Family are financing the awards.